Transportation systems are generally known from the state of the art in which electrically driven vehicles are supplied with electrical energy via overhead lines. Means of transportation of this kind are used in particular in public local passenger transport as rail-bound trolley cars or as lane-bound trolley busses. For supplying traction current, a current collector with electrical sliding contacts is in constant sliding contact with the current-carrying overhead wire hanging above the vehicle. Transportation systems of this kind require substantial investments in the traffic infrastructure to be provided, in particular in terms of the costs for installation and maintenance of the overhead line system. Moreover, a transportation system of t his sort is bound to a fixed traffic routing in contrast to “free” traffic. In addition to this dependence on rails and lanes, the appearance of overhead lines is often perceived as unaesthetic, especially in the area of the city center.
In the course of increasing electro-mobility, these disadvantages can be overcome by the use of vehicles with rechargeable energy stores. However, on the one hand, these means of transportation require a charging infrastructure including charging stations at which the accumulators of the electric vehicles can be stationarily charged at certain distances. These charging stations can preferably be arranged in stop bays in the form of overhead charging stations for public transportation vehicles so that the charging process can take place during the stay of the vehicle at a stop.
On the other hand, in addition to the electric drive concept, the vehicles must be equipped with devices for current transmission, i.e. for the electrical contacting of the overhead charging stations and for collecting the charging current. Previously known current collector systems are only designed for transmitting a driving current, i.e. for supplying power while the vehicle is in motion, the supplied electrical energy being directly converted into kinetic energy via an electric drive device without being stored.